Democratic theory, representation and participatory institutions in Bolivia,
Ecuador and Venezuela
Fidel Pérez Flores
Clayton M. Cunha Filho
André Luiz Coelho
Abstract:
The constitutions of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, all enacted within the last ten
years, include besides traditional political representation institutions participatory
mechanisms that broaden the scope for intervention on the decision making process
beyond electoral mechanisms and the dispute for representative offices. In light of the
theoretical debate between representative democracy and direct or participatory
democracy, the aim of this work is to identify the challenges for the opening of the
decision making process to deeper levels of popular participation and the dilemmas
faced by the three countries for the effective implementation of those new institutions
brought by their inherent complexity. Are the critics to participatory models right about
the impracticability of such experiments or does the empirical evidence from the three
countries point new paths for democratic theory?
Keywords: Democratic Theory, Participative Democracy, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela
Recent experiences of institutional re-foundation in Latin America have strongly
introduced the idea that the political systems must open more channels for the citizens’
participation through constitutional mechanisms. The Andean region in South America,
in particular, experienced the promulgation of new Constitutions in Venezuela, Ecuador
and Bolivia within a decade from 1999 to 2009 that incorporated a broad set of
participatory mechanisms that tend to move the monopoly over the decision making
process away from the elected representatives. They are certainly not the only, nor the
first countries to formally recognize some of these mechanisms in the region1, but they
have become the center of attention for such experiences lately due to their perceived
radicalness2 and the emphasis given by their governments and allies over the necessity
to build a new kind of democracy.
In a previous work (Pérez Flores, Cunha Filho, e Coelho 2010), we have shown
that these countries’ new constitutional order effectively proposes an institutional
design that incorporates important participatory mechanisms that go beyond the mere
election of representatives. These new mechanisms, summarized in Table 1 can be
divided in five big groups that allow for: a) the possibility of revoking the mandates of
all elected representatives; b) the possibility of revoking or ratifying laws and
international treaties; c) the participation of civil society organizations in the
composition of control and accountability institutions; d) legislative initiative; and e)
co-government in local instances3. At the same time, however, we found that despite the
inflamed critical rhetoric towards representative democracy held by them, none of the
three cases considered have actually abandoned the essential traits of such model4. This
way, the adopted participatory institutions coexist and eventually complement the
traditional representative mechanisms.
1
See the interesting mapping of constitutional recognition of participatory democracy mechanisms in
South American countries done by Alicia Lissidini (2008).
2
Which led some to label them as “document-driven revolutions” (Partlow 2009).
3
In that work we actually divided the mechanisms in 8 groups: amplified representation, revocation of
mandates, revocation/ratification of laws, foreign policy, popular accountability mechanisms, legislative
initiative, co-government mechanisms and indigenous autonomy. We have since reconsidered and
decided to regroup them into these five groups because the amplified representation through gender and
ethnic quotas and the indigenous autonomy are not really participatory mechanisms in the same sense as
the others and the foreign policy mechanisms were the exact same mechanisms for the
revocation/ratification of laws applied to the external treaties, thus being of the same nature and
considered here under the same group.
4
Bernard Manin (1995), for example, lists four elements or institutions that characterize representative
democracy: a) the designation of governments through periodic elections; b) the relative independence of
rulers from the governed; c) the possibility that the governed may express opinions and preferences
without coercion from the rulers; and d) the possibility of submitting governmental decisions to the public
debate. All of these elements are present on the constitutions from these three countries.
2
Table 1
Participation
Mechanisms
Revocation of
Mandates
Revocation /
ratification of
laws and
international
treaties
Bolivia
Ecuador
Venezuela
All elected offices are
revocable (Art. 240)
Any amendment to the
Constitution must be
submitted to a
referendum (Art. 411).
All elected offices are
revocable (Art. 105)
All elected offices are
revocable (Art. 72).
The citizens may
summon a referendum
over treaties and
international
conventions (Art. 259).
Treaties over border
issues, monetary and
structural economic
integration and cession
of competence to
supranational entities
must be submitted to
referendum
(Art. 257).
Exercised through the
State and Society’s
Control and Defense
Function [Public
Ministry, Ombudsman
and Controller General]
(Art. 213 to 231).
Popular
Accountability
Legislative
Initiative
All citizens may summon
All citizens may summon a
a referendum to revoke
referendum to revoke laws
laws and presidential
and presidential decrees
decrees (Art. 103 and
(Art. 73 and 74).
104).
Constitution must be
submitted to a referendum
(Art. 441 and 443).
The citizens may summon
a referendum over treaties
and international
conventions (Art. 420).
Exercised through the
Fifth Branch [Citizen’s
Participation and Social
Control Council,
Ombudsman and
Controller General] (Art.
204 and 205).
Constitution must be
submitted to a referendum
(Art. 341 and 344).
The citizens may summon
a referendum over treaties
and international
conventions (Art. 73).
Exercised through the Fifth
Branch [Public Ministry,
Ombudsman and
Controller General] (Art.
273 to 291).
Organized society presents
candidates to direct the
Branch; the National
Assembly performs the
nominations (Art. 279).
Organized civil society
The citizens and social
participates in the
organizations select
oversight and control of members for the Citizen’s
public management in
Participation and Social
Members of the Fifth
all state levels and of
Control Council to
Branch are designated by
any company that
oversight all levels of
popular suffrage only when
receives public funds government (Art. 207, 209
a majority cannot be
(Art. 241 and 242).
and 210).
reached in the Assembly
(Art. 279).
Citizens may propose
legislation, constitutional
Citizens may propose
amendments and summon
legislation,
Citizens may propose
a Constitutional Assembly legislation, constitutional
constitutional
(Art. 103, 104, 135 and
amendments and
amendments and summon
444).
summon a
a Constitutional Assembly
Constitutional
(Art. 204, 341, 342 and
Assembly (Art. 162 and Ecuadorians abroad have
348).
411).
the same prerogatives
(Art. 102).
3
Citizen’s participation in
all levels of government
(Art. 85 and 95).
Community organizations
participate in the
execution, control and
planning of public works,
social programs and
provision of public
services (Art. 70 and 184).
Guarantees the
participation of
Civil society
representatives from civil
participates in the
design and management society in the discussions
and deliberations of subCo-management of public policies, but
national governments
refers to a still nonWorkers participate in the
mechanisms
(Art. 101).
existent infraadministration of public
constitutional regulation
companies (Art. 184).
Citizens
may
participate
in
(Art. 241 and 242).
the National Planning
A Communal Council’s
Council, responsible for Law of 2006 regulates the
mechanisms for
the National
Development Plan (Art. community participation.
279 and 280).
Sources: Own elaboration from (República del Ecuador 2008; Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia 2009;
República Boliviariana de Venezuela 1999).
In that previous work, besides describing the particular form these countries
incorporated each of these mechanisms, we pointed to the fact that their effective
implementation involved distinct degrees of complexity that vary according to the
citizen’s involvement intensity presupposed by each mechanism. Thus, it would be
possible to reclassify the mechanisms from the point of view of their inherent
complexity and the challenges they bring for an effective implementation. The main
criterion for this reclassification would be to identify in which measure the ballot loses
relevance as an essential dispositive for that mechanism to come true. To the extent that
other apparatuses and pre-conditions for participation become more relevant, the
complexity for their effective implementation increases and the theoretical discussion of
this complexity brought about by the participatory mechanisms is the precise subject of
this paper. We initiate the discussion dealing with the general challenges existent with
the implementation of democratic political ideals in large scale polities and follow it
with a more direct consideration of the relevant questions raised by the theoretical
debate for the implementation of these five participatory mechanisms.
1. The double problem of really existing democracies
Many scholars agree that an important requirement for democratic regimes is the
need for the biggest possible convergence between the interests of rulers and ruled. The
intrinsic diversity of the big human conglomerates and the difficulties to reach perfectly
4
unanimous agreements are insurmountable elements of human sociability that make
necessary the existence of institutionalized forms of representation to temporarily install
a reduced group of citizens in the function of government. The analysis conducted by
Hanna Pitkin (1972) over representation’s dilemmas is exemplary of the difficulties for
the implementation of democratic ideals through the indirect exercise of government.
Even if representation mechanisms solved the question of deciding who governs
in complex mass societies, the issue around the loyalty from the rulers to the ruled
persists. Independently of how legitimate the procedure that installs the representatives
might be, there is no guarantee that the group of rulers will not betray the interests and
needs of the polity they represent and start to act on their own benefit. In such case, we
find what Enrique Dussel (2007) calls the fetichization of power, the exercise of power
delegated by the political community perverts itself and becomes a mechanism of
domination.
This problem’s double face is latent in every democratic essay and expresses
itself as follows: big and diverse political communities cannot be directly self-governed
and need representative institutions to conform a temporary a ruling class. However,
these rulers remain eternally suspicious of deviation. History is full of attempts carried
by polities from distinct places and times to face, with bigger or lesser degrees of
success, this double problem.
To face the selection of representatives’ issue, modern political systems have
established the ballot as the quintessential mechanism of legitimacy for the ruling elites’
choice. A trajectory of more than 200 years illustrates the transformations around this
essential institution for representative democracies. The existence of this right in many
countries, however, does not fulfill completely the democratic aspirations of those
conscious about the separation between the small and powerful world of the rules from
that of the common citizens. Hence the momentum that has been building up in some
Latin American countries for the idea that the democratic systems must be reformed
towards a bigger participation from citizens in the decision making processes beyond
the ballot.
Throughout the last thirty years, the region’s countries endured a broad set of
structural reforms that aimed at switching the import substitutions model for the
neoliberal one. For that, one of the most commonly used strategies was the
strengthening of the Executive over the Legislative, expressed in the dilemma of more
governability and less representativeness. In many countries, however, the
5
consequences of this new logic were perverse, with repeated cases of policy switches5
that generally implied the increase of political instability, popular mobilizations and
presidential break-downs. It is possible to state that one of the motivations for this series
of constitutional reforms in the Andean countries towards more representativeness and
participation was to respond to recent cases of the phenomenon. But the design of
participative institutions opens, on its turn, a new set of challenges for the fulfilling of
the democratic ideal.
2. Participative institutions and their challenges
The bigger the intensity of the citizen’s involvement demanded by an
institutional mechanism of democratic participation, the more complex and challenging
its implementation becomes in the context of modern political systems. This is the
thesis that leads us to identify an incremental complexity dynamic between the
mandates’ revocation mechanism, the simplest, and the co-government, the most
complex. A dialogue with several authors who have dedicated their attention to the
reflection over the functioning of democratic systems, their ideals and hindrances allows
us to better identify the dynamics of this incremental complexity.
The ballot, on itself, is already a participation mechanism that demands from the
citizen only taking care of his inscription on a list and his periodical presence to an
electoral district in order to choose his preferred option among the offered candidates. It
is clear that for that to be possible in a large scale, it is necessary to mobilize many more
human and material resources so that the citizens may come forward and cast their vote.
But from the citizen’s point of view, participation at this level is relatively simple. It is
true that, for a better use of this right, it is desirable that the citizen is sufficiently
informed about the presented options in order for him to elect the better option from the
point of view of his notions of self-identity and interests. But as Sartori (1994) points
out, it is not crucial for the functioning of a democracy. The final ballot count does not
distinguish among the votes cast by more informed citizens and the legitimacy of the
elected comes only from the fact that they possess a clear majority of preferences. It is
not demanded from the citizen to be competent or informed about all the relevant
5
Stokes (2001) analyzed the implementation of neoliberal reforms in the region and called attention to
the occurrence of the policy switch phenomenon, a strategic action taken by the representatives that hide
their real intentions and promise attractive policies during the electoral campaign but, once elected,
switch to opposing propositions implementing conservative unpopular measures.
6
questions, since in this context he doesn’t have any meaningful room for intervention
over the subsequent decision making process.
When the considered constitutions open up the possibility for revoking
mandates, legislation and international treaties, it is inherently an extension of the ballot
mechanism beyond the selection of leaders. Thereby, people vote as well to sanction
some of the decisions taken by the rulers over matters deemed to be crucial by an
expressive part of the citizenship. Given the historical experience available for the
various voting exercises, we may say that the implementation of such mechanisms is at
hand. In fact, that is an institution that has already been practiced with relative normality
in many countries.
Francisco Gutiérrez and Fabián Acuña (2009) examined 20 national referenda
occurred between 1985 and 2009 in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
The themes submitted to that mechanism were frequently linked to efforts of broad
institutional reconfiguration, such as the territorial State design, Executive-Legislative
relations, modes of access and permanence in elected offices, constitutional ratification
etc. Some distortions, however, were pointed by the authors when evaluating these
experiences: asymmetries in the agenda power between decision-making agents, the
public agents’ structural advantages for promoting their preferences and the tendency
for dismantling other checks-and-balances mechanisms. On her turn, Alicia Lissidini
(2008) on her study about referendum mechanisms argues that this process can promote
two contradictory tendencies: on one hand, the effective inclusion of citizens into big
public interest decisions and, on the other, the expansion of the constituted powers’
influence, most notably the Executive’s, thus stimulating the logics of delegation. Taken
together, the kinds of distortion pointed out by the authors are not so different than the
ones possibly present from ordinary electoral processes or concern only the equilibrium
among the constituted powers inside the representative system itself.
We now turn to the analysis of other kinds of difficulties, distortions and
challenges arisen by the demand of the citizen’s participation beyond the ballot.
2.1 Collective Action problems
Mancur Olson’s classic work (1999) about collective action is interesting to
analyze the participative democracy initiatives in the considered countries. The author
rejects the classic idea that groups will act united to reach their objectives when imbued
with rational behavior and centered on their own interests. According to Olson,
7
Unless the group of individuals is really small, … there is coercion or
another special dispositive to make individuals act in self benefit,
rational and self-centered individuals will not act to promote their
common or group interests.
Applying that logic to the cases under study, popular participation would be
extremely harmed, once these individuals would not have incentives to participate in the
co-government and popular accountability institutions and in the legislative initiative.
Reflecting upon this logic in what concerns the big organized groups in the considered
countries, however, we see in the Bolivian and Ecuadorian indigenous organizations
some examples that contradict the argument’s fatality. The Indigenous Nationalities’
Confederation of Ecuador (Conaie) and the National Council of Ayllus and Marqas
from Qollasuyu (Conamaq) and the Indigenous Peoples’ Confederation of the Bolivian
East (Cidob) are examples of groups formed in the opposition to the State. Not only
they did not receive public incentives, but they also had to face severe constraints and
coercion and still managed to maintain a notable degree of mobilization capacity.
Certainly, once that they now count with governments that are more favorable to their
interests, the issue may transform itself and bring risks of cooptation and autonomy loss,
which could come to be a threat to democracy and contradict the participatory ideal 6. In
the Venezuelan case, the creation of communal councils (see Pérez Flores, Cunha Filho,
e Coelho 2010) as local instances of direct participation all over the country’s territory
is a strong example of the risks of cooptation by the central government through
conditionalities over resource transfers.
Certainly, economic incentives are not the only ones of possible consideration
by the individuals, since aspirations of prestige, respect, friendship and other objectives
of social and psychological nature could also be important. Therefore, we must also
consider the possible existence of situations where there is no economic incentive, but
rather a social one. It may be these incentives very promoted by the ongoing
governments of the three countries such as patriotism, ideology, mobilization against a
common enemy etc. that could lead individuals to engage in participatory institutions.
In our specific cases, where participatory mechanisms were created as an answer to
demands for a radical re-foundation of the State and its participatory instances and that,
therefore, possessed a high degree of pre-existing popular mobilization, this could give
6
It should be noted, however, that in May 2010 the Pachakutik Party, political arm of Conaie, joined the
opposition to Rafael Correa due to disagreements over his environmental policies.
8
the necessary incentives for participation.7 Surely, this could be a sort of incentive that
works well at a first moment and later lose its efficacy with the passing of time, thus
putting back the question.
2.2 Apathy, extremism and intensity of preferences
The participatory ideal in institutional designs presupposes, from the citizens, a
demand for a more decisive participation at the decision-making process with
attributions that go beyond the mere selection of representatives. The potentially
participative subjects are not, however, homogeneous concerning their interest for
politics and participatory venues. There is a part of the citizenship that simply doesn’t
care about it while at the same time there might exist, on the other extreme, a population
which demonstrates great interest for the same matters and that orient towards it a great
deal of time and effort. In between, there will be those who manifest a moderate
interest. What consequences could this heterogeneity bring for the implementation of
participative democracy mechanisms?
There is no participatory system without participants. Therefore, the greater the
number of apathetic citizens, the less viable the effective implementation of such
system. However, it would also be excessive to consider that any experimentation
towards that direction would require the total disposition of the citizenship. Just as the
representative system is viable despite the high levels of abstention in several places and
times, there is no reason to suppose that mechanisms for increased participation can
only exist if this participation is to be total. Carole Pateman (1992) comments that many
times the criticism against those who advocate higher levels of participation take the
form of considering them unrealistic for demanding high levels of rationality and
political involvement from all the citizens. But having recognized the impossibility of
fulfilling this ideal in absolute terms, it is worth questioning up to what point the
relative apathy towards politics may hinder the functioning of increased participation
institutions. Especially if this phenomenon interacts with its logical opposite, the
existence of coalitions around very intense and extreme preferences.
The issue of intensity leads Sartori (1994) to affirm that direct democracy ends
up being a heaven come true for active minorities with very intense preferences.
7
We lack the data for the Bolivian and Ecuadorian cases, but in Venezuela participation has been quite
high, amounting to 35.5% of the adult population in the Communal Councils according to a study
conducted by Kirk Hawkins (2010, 41), remarkable for an institution that is not capable of providing
much direct personal material incentives as compared to the amounts of time and effort it demands.
9
Majority preferences that are weak at the intensity level can be defeated by minority
preferences that are strong. Intense groups are active; those active prevail over the
apathetic and only small groups can be durably intense. Intense minorities are real
groups capable of linking preferences over a series of issues; intense majorities,
however, are ephemeral aggregates. The bigger the group, the harder the complex
linking of preferences becomes.
For institutions such as co-management in local governments, public
accountability instances and legislative initiative, the coexistence of extremists and the
apathetic could pose some negative consequences. It represents, after all, the capture of
collective action by minorities that, because they have a more intense activism, are able
to impose preferences that may contradict the will of the majority. When it comes to
promoting a legislative initiative or organizing the participation in accountability
organs, this possibility is diluted since other institutions, such as congress and referenda,
may intervene in the process. The more severe consequences in Sartori’s terms would
be in local governments. If, as he fears, an intense and extremist minority takes over the
decision-making process in a community that decides through assembly meetings, there
is indeed an open possibility for apathetic majorities to be crushed by decided
minorities. In such a case, other institutional guarantees could be necessary as checks
and balances so that this situation does not become an authoritarian imposition practice.
Because a main motivator for participation is ideology, it is true that participants
tend to show a partisan bias. Because participatory democracy is currently being
promoted by left-wing governments in Latin America as a sort of revolutionary
experiment, some sort of self-screening by the part of participants tends to be in action
causing participation to cluster around partisan militants and hindering diversity inside
the mechanisms. Hawkins (2010) documented it for the Venezuelan case, but it is likely
that a similar dynamics operates in the others as well since they share with Venezuela
the acute political polarization and the promoted rationale for the participatory
deepening. But still, these new institutions in Venezuela – but also likely in the other
two countries as well – have lived up to the ideal of empowering “groups that are often
absent from traditional civil society, especially women and the poor” (Hawkins 2010,
60) and because none of the countries have abandoned representative mechanisms, but
rather implemented the participatory ones as complementary, Sartori’s theoretical fears
seem quite exaggerated.
10
2.3 Life’s hyper-politicization / costs for other activities
An inherent consequence of participative mechanisms is the increase in the
frequency of political intervention for an expressive part of the citizenship. It is not
anymore only an eventual presence at the ballot booth, since now the citizen would be
summoned to join supervisory committees for the selection of oversight organs, to
intervene in the debates of a popular initiative legislative project or to deliberate in a
neighbors’ assembly over the better way to invest resources. If these mechanisms really
encompass populations that do not have in politics their main activity, as the
participatory ideal demands, then we are authentically broadening the scope of this
activity and a bigger citizen’s involvement with everyday public power issues would be
demanded. Hence, the question: wouldn’t an excessive politicization of life derive in
high costs for the fulfillment of other socially necessary activities?
Sartori (1994), for example, affirms that when everyone is busy with politics,
other activities may be emptied. It would be the case with the economic functions
needful for the sustainment of life in common and that could end up atrophied as a
consequence. That is why he says it is desirable for politics to occupy only a handful.
As already mentioned, however, the existence of mechanisms that broaden the
participatory scope would hardly motivate all the citizenship and we don’t have reasons
to suppose this involvement would take up all of their times. Especially if we accept
that these institutions are complementary to the representative gear and that is not a pure
direct democracy what is being proposed. The question of up to what point it is
reasonable to demand an intense involvement in politics from the common citizens
without hindering other equally relevant activities or of up to what point the citizens,
even the more politically prone, can dedicate enough time and effort to participate in a
sufficient way in the political sphere is, nevertheless, relevant.
2.4 Technical competences
The opening of new venues of participation beyond the ballot brings the issue of
technical competences. In a world of technological changes, social division of labor and
delegation of functions to specialized bureaucracies, the question of if the citizens
possess enough capacity to take over those functions has always been raised by critics
of direct democracy as one of their mains objections to the extension of popular power
beyond suffrage. In the three countries there are, however, at least three mechanisms
where there is a possibility of a more or less direct intervention in fields where some
11
kind of technical knowledge is expected: legislative initiative, accountability
mechanisms and co-government.
By legislative initiative we refer to the power granted to the citizens of
presenting legislative projects or constitutional amendment proposals. Although the
parliament has a final word at the decision of whether to approve or reject the proposals
with varying degrees and deadlines of obligatory consideration (see Pérez Flores, Cunha
Filho, e Coelho 2010), the elaboration by the citizens of a legislative project
presupposes a technical knowledge of the proper language to be used in it, as well as the
capacity of anticipating the effects it will provoke on its specific field once it is enacted
into law. The main point here is not so much the possibility of non-anticipated adverse
effects coming from a popular initiative law, since it is equally present in legislative
projects presented by representatives, but the fact that the granted power is broad
enough to encompass both laws of a very general character and a very specific one, such
as social security policies, hydrocarbon laws etc. In these cases, the degree of technical
knowledge potentially required really puts into question how much the common citizen
could in fact use that power and the risks of its appropriation by specific interest groups
already previously organized that could use it on their own benefit.
However, although it would be unrealistic to imagine a massive utilization of
this instrument by common citizens, being more likely that legislative projects would be
submitted by previously mobilized groups that hold some degree of specific technical
knowledge such as NGOs, professional associations, trade unions etc., the obligatory
filter of parliament voting reduces any serious risk of power usurpation by radicalized
minorities as feared by Sartori (1994). In these countries there is even a second possible
filter through which any legislation may be reverted (legislative revoking mechanisms),
thus showing enough checks and balances for the preserving of minority’s rights (see
Pérez Flores, Cunha Filho, e Coelho 2010). And concerning the possibility that it would
be vanguards and elites who would profit the most from the mechanism, although it is
plausible, we ought not to forget that the introduction of legislation by lobbies shielded
behind a representative is an already existing situation in many places and times. In that
sense, even if the costs from technical knowledge and mobilization cause this
mechanism to be more frequently used by specific interest groups, if it serves only to
give more transparency to already existing lobbies it would already have performed an
important role for democracy.
12
As with the accountability mechanisms, the issue of competencies becomes
more complex and important. In Venezuela and Ecuador there is an independent State
power that possesses among its attributions the oversight of public administration
through specific organs that include national councils of popular participation with
control and surveillance attributions. In Bolivia, although it is not constitutionalized as
an independent power, the constitutional text points to equally important functions and
with a wording that suggests an even more direct form of control, although it later
remits it to an infra-constitutional legislation yet to be enacted. To the extent that it
deals with themes such as budget execution, the acting of complex state-owned
enterprises and specific public policies, it is necessary that the citizens acting inside
such control mechanisms have specific knowledge according to the cases under analysis
in order to carry these functions in a productive way.
In the case of control through councils with appointed members, the issue
becomes softer with the possibility that some qualification pre-requisites are demanded,
but in more direct intervention cases such as the one suggested by the Bolivian
constitution it remains an important challenge to be tackled with.
And the challenge becomes even greater in the co-management mechanisms,
where citizens must not only verify the good execution of policies, but rather formulate
and execute them themselves. Once more, Bolivia draws a more ambitious proposal
where civil society would have direct participation prerogatives at the design of public
policies, but again submits it to a still non-existing regulatory law. In the other cases,
there are more details given in the constitutional text, although they also present some
vagueness over specific regulations. In Ecuador, for example, the constitutions
establishes the citizen’s participation in the National Planning Council, although it is not
clear how many citizens would participate and how will they be chosen. Anyway, it is
taken for granted that the citizens participating in such co-management instances will
possess a very specialized level of technical knowledge in different areas, which may
encompass from the very broad Ecuadorian planning council to specific public
enterprises in the fields of oil and gas, mining etc.
In the Venezuelan case, since the enactment of the Communal Councils Law in
2006 sub-municipal political unities were created with their own budgetary resources
and which must decide in open assemblies their destination, the execution of public
works and communal management. Among the three countries, this is probably the
most radical experiment in direct democracy and self-government being executed and
13
according to a study conducted by the Fundación Centro Gumilla (Machado 2009),
there were more than 25 thousand communal councils already functioning and 10
thousand being formed in 2008, showing, however, ambiguous results so far. On one
hand, it highlights the increase in local empowerment, the definition of priorities by the
communities themselves and the experience of direct participation afforded to many
citizens that were very politically passive before, confirming the viability of such
experiment. On the other, the lack of administrative experience of many councilors has
in fact impaired the quality of the decisions adopted by some of the councils,
confirming the issue of technical competences (see Ellner 2009).
2.5 Pseudo-participation
A frequent worry from participative democracy theorists is the possibility that
the institutional mechanisms for participation end up being in practice just instruments
for the legitimation of decisions taken by a ruling clique. Carole Pateman (1992), for
example, alerts for this possibility by recognizing three kinds of participation. The first
one being full participation, an ideal, where each isolated member has an equal power in
the achievement of final decisions. The second would be a partial participation, in
which there are leaders and subordinates in the deliberative body, with the latter having
a certain power for influencing the decisions, but with the final decision up to the
leaders. And finally, there would be a pseudo-participation where a clique makes a
decision and, instead of just communicating it to the subordinate for execution, it is
submitted to discussion in order to create a participative rapport. In this case, it is more
an element of persuasion than a true decision-making mechanism.
Armando Chaguaceda (2008), in the analysis of participatory experiences in
Cuba, suggests that there are distinct ways for citizens’ participation to take form,
understanding it as self-conscious activity of involvement in constitutional sociopolitical processes. In the context of Cuban State socialism, he observes that the ruling
elites are interested in a kind of participation understood only as a mobilization where it
is expected from the masses to execute the policies designed by a centralized command.
He identifies there the existence of an associative space that groups relatively
autonomous collectives self-identified with a leftist democratic tradition that are,
nevertheless, constantly in tension with the state bureaucracy for not submitting to the
vertical model of official participation. Although speaking about a different country
with a totally different constitutional model, the study is interesting nevertheless
14
because in showing this pseudo-participation dynamic and the tensions brought about
by more autonomous modes of participation it highlights some of the tensions already
shown in incipient forms in the three countries we analyze, most specially in Venezuela.
3. Final reflections
Throughout this essay we showed the adoption of participatory institutions in the
frame of contemporary Latin American political systems signals for the opening up of
the decision-making process for new actors with demands for broadened participation.
But, at the same time, we highlight issues from the theoretical debate around democratic
institutions that announce the challenge implied by the full implementation of these new
mechanisms. We believe that a reflection about the problems and eventual distortions of
these new mechanisms contributes both for the improvement of empirical analyses of
their practice and for alerting the actors genuinely interested in their success of their
possible shortcomings.
As part of the analytic effort, we presented arguments about the reasons
participative institutions face more complex challenges when taken into practice. This
way, we understand the ballot’s centrality as a fundamental mechanism for institutions
such as the revocation of mandates or laws make them more accessible for short-term
implementation. Suffrage is already a common practice in many countries and the
citizenship is used to exerting it. In a revocation referendum, for example, the vote for
the candidates is substituted for the decision about a question frequently made in
dichotomic terms: are you in favor or against the revocation of your representative from
the office to which she was elected? Are you in favor or against the enactment of this
law or treaty?
Other mechanisms, such as legislative initiative, popular accountability and comanagement in local governments are premised in a more active citizen who is also
informed and competent in various matters. Hence, authors such as Lissidini (2008)
suggestion of differentiating between reactive and pro-active mechanisms. The
referenda are among the first, while the other mechanisms are the pro-active ones. The
attempt to implement such mechanisms needs citizens ready to share responsibilities
and accept a coherent effort to the size of their leadership. Therefore, interventions in
spheres other than the purely institutional are necessary, thus suggesting a long term
process.
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The more skeptical approaches towards the viability of these mechanisms
recommend, in the name of the danger of finding as a real result the opposite of what
was intended as an ideal, that the most prudent would be not to try their implementation
at all. The classic representative institutions, however, are not immune to this opposite
danger themselves, as already mentioned in the case of policy switches. Also, many of
the authors cited here, from the more sympathetic to participative institutions, such as
Enrique Dussel (2007), to the more critical such as Sartori (1994), agree, each on their
own terms, that all forms of actually existing democracies are imperfect and that we are
not to expect from them a fulfillment in all their ideal purity. Therefore, we highlight
the relevance of an institutional experimentalism that points towards a more dynamic
and less delegative interaction between rulers and ruled, but taking into account the
eventual shortcomings and deformities along the way.
4. References
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